


Autonomous Trails

by ElrueFaerie



Category: TMNT (2007), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-09
Updated: 2014-04-09
Packaged: 2018-01-18 17:27:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1436674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElrueFaerie/pseuds/ElrueFaerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leo takes a moment to reflect on the years after splinter passed away and begins wondering where the path will lead them now. ONE-SHOT</p>
            </blockquote>





	Autonomous Trails

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of an "all-encompassing"-verse. The 90's movies happened, most of the comics have happened (which the movies were based on anyhow), etc. They've been to other universes, seen other timelines, fought other beings, etc etc. I don't mention the exact age or year, but I would say the boys are in their early 30s by now.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own any of TMNT universes.

**LEONARDO**

There were a lot of things that happened after Master Splinter left us. We were still young, all of us. After all, how many people do you know lose their single father by the age of 20?

I should probably preface this with the fact that we’re all okay now. A little rough around the edges, but still studying what we were taught. Nothing could stop us from letting our father’s legend die simply because we were too heartbroken to handle life afterward. It’s sort of the silver lining in the cloud, if you will. On the other hand, those days were pretty dark. Not many of us like to think back on them, even now.

Donny shut himself off, completely. There wasn’t a waking moment that I remembered seeing him other than to walk from one closed door to another. Most days I don’t even think he slept. Most nights we’d feel faint movements in the floor while he worked on some machinery. It seemed to keep him busy, though; Donatello was always good with his hands. He began taking mail orders for broken cell phones and computers as the technology grew. I’m not even completely sold that this ‘Steve Jobs’ guy was really the brains behind Apple, so much as he was the figurehead for what my brother did as a hobby. But that was years later, I suppose, when Donny finally decided that he couldn't completely shut us all out.

April moved out of the city a few years after it all. She still came down from time-to-time when the real world got to be too much, but we rarely saw her. A big part of that had to do with Casey. The two of them fought like cats and dogs when they were angry. You couldn't pull the city boy out of Casey any more than you could the country girl out of April, but they tried their damnedest to do it. Once, and this was a pretty bad night, April left Casey for good. You think we were bad? He was a mess. He slept with anything on two legs and completely went round the bend on everything they had built. It lasted a few weeks before he realized what he truly wanted out of life, and then he picked up and went to the country side. The man did a complete 180 in his personality. Eventually, he and April married and now they even have a kid together. It’s weird how things work out, but Casey is the kind of father most people would kill to have growing up. Made the rest of us kind of proud.

Well, most of us. Not like any of us hadn't had a drink before, but Raph, he took to whiskey like it was water. Pretty sure we all had Casey to blame for that, back then. He’d go out looking for fights he couldn’t win, Casey right behind him in a similar drunken stupor as back up. The both of them coming home bloody and beaten in the middle of the night. I guess it depended on whose home was in limping distance at the end of the fight. There were mornings when the two of them would barrel into the common area, howling and wheezing in celebration at their own stupidity. Donny was usually up, working on some gadget or computer program whatsit. He’d wake me before the guys woke Mikey and, sometimes, April to check them for any serious damage before berating the hell out of them on their behavior. Even Casey laughed at me, back then. Deep down, I knew it was their way of coping, but I hated it all the same. When Casey left, Raph was sort of on his own in the mess he’d made of his life. He had no passion other than to kick around any lowlife he could find, and now his right hand man was gone too.

Granted, I think there was more there than he let on. Casey was Raph’s first buddy out of the nest. Sure, we were all friends, but we were brothers. Sometimes, you really needed to have someone that was yours and yours alone. We all figured that out slowly, but I think Raphael was really the first to pick up on it. I don’t think he realized how much though, until he got to growing up. Raph always had a little bit of a temper, but when he turned mean, it was usually because he felt like he had something to prove. He’d never tell us what that thing was, hell, I’m not even sure he’ll admit it to himself ever, but deep down we all kind of guessed. There’s no poking an angry badger in the eye, though, not if you want to keep your limbs attached.

I said “wake up Mikey” before like he actually COULD be awoken at night. Usually, the guy is off sleeping like the dead. But not after what we’d been through. Sometimes I could hear him crying out in his sleep, others, I knew he wasn’t sleeping. It was like Japan all over again: he wouldn’t eat, didn’t want to play video games or practice on his skateboard. Half the time he moped around on the couch watching TV and pretending nothing bothered him. He would smile when it was expected of him, laugh when we made a joke; the actions were there on his face, but his eyes were empty. Mike’s a pretty positive guy, though. It took a year or two, but eventually he bounced back. We all worked on a way to get him out of the lair more. Baby bro was never going to go to school, nor would he ever be fully willing to leave home without someone else to keep him company. Family was his thing, it was everything he knew growing up and all he’d ever really needed in life.

Which got me to thinking…

* * *

 

Leonardo stretched as he finished his notes. Somewhere early on he’d become accustomed to writing down his thoughts instead of bothering everyone else with them. He got up from his desk and switched off the light in his room, shutting the bedroom door behind him. He made sure to pass through the common room to check for any living creatures, but it was sadly empty. Frowning in disappointment, the grown turtle made his way into the kitchen and grabbed a carton of milk from the fridge. He opened it up and brought it to his mouth right before coughing fitfully and pulling away from himself. Ugh, the smell of that was rancid! He checked the date and his frown deepened. Whose turn had it been to buy groceries last month? Leo padded over to the kitchen sink and poured the chunks down the drain. Chances were, he’d have to go out and do a run on his own. Some parts of the city now had trucks that delivered groceries to your front door. The technology in this new era was off the charts. Humans simply didn’t have to leave their homes for anything anymore. Food, Dating, playing games with friends, it was all done on a computer. Donny and Mike had picked up on those trends so fast it made Leo’s head spin. Even crime was mostly conducted through emails and websites now. Not that it wasn’t a relief to see the city was safer, but Leonardo kind of missed the old days where getting out to breathe fresh air was a normal occurrence.

Leo tossed the carton into a heap of trash and made a mental note to claim ‘kitchen cleanup’ as the next team building experience. Four twenty-something bachelors living in a hole did not do well. Especially when said bachelors never brought someone back home to impress. Leo sighed, the idea bringing back into focus what he had originally been hoping to discuss with someone, anyone, who would listen. He now stood in the middle of the common room. The couch and a giant screen loomed off to his right, while the three corridors to rooms led away from the open space like rat holes, no pun intended. It took them all a long time to accept it but, eventually, they had made their way into their sensei’s bedroom. The mantels had moved to the main lobby, sort of a showcase where “Here lay the fallen. You have been warned” trophies were displayed on either side as one entered the abandoned train station. The rest of the room was fairly barren. No one truly wanted to move into it, so they turned it into a kind of shrine for meditation. That only lasted another year, seeing how Leonardo ended up being the only one of them to use it. From time to time, he’d find Michelangelo in there, sitting in the quiet and staring at the wall, but it was less for quiet and more for wanting to feel close to the man that had raised him. Eventually, Leo moved in (much to Raphael’s displeasure, but that was to be expected) and they all sort of reorganized the room situation. The open train where Mikey slept was now an extended lab for Donatello, a separate space from having to stack all his inventions and research in his own room. At the moment, the light was on. Donny had blacked out some of the windows to keep the items inside from prying eyes and curious fingers, but a patch of illumination spilled through the edges around the door.

Leo knocked first. It was the only way Donny would know it was him and not one of their other brothers. He didn’t wait for an invitation, though, and pushed open the hinged doorway that had been added after Michelangelo evacuated it.

“Hey Leo,” Donatello didn’t even turn around, instead tapping furiously on the keys in front of him.

“Hey,” Leonardo answered as he shut the door. “How’s it going?”

Donny shrugged. “Same old stuff. Reviewing code for an application that I’m hoping goes viral on iPhones next month.”

“Erm…that’s cool. “ Leo didn’t really know what to say. None of those words made much sense to him, but most of what Donny talked about when he was working did. Leo just summed it up to ‘something that has to do with this week’s hi-tech trend’ and left it at that. If his brother didn’t elaborate, then it wasn’t something that pertained to Leo in any way.

Now that he was here, Leonardo wasn’t sure what he was going to say. He walked over to a chair in a corner of the room and sat down. For a few minutes he just watched Donatello tap away at the screen, squinting when his eyes couldn’t focus. The guy actually wore glasses now, not all the time, but when he was staring at a computer screen for long hours at a time, he would put them on to help him focus. Leo could see it affecting him in his martial arts skills, too. He was fast, and he could block or throw a punch like the rest of them, but sometimes he’d be a little off the mark. Raphael would actually be able to scrape his skin because Donny wouldn’t move far enough back.

“Did you want to talk to me about something?” Donny had dropped his glasses and was rubbing at his eyes. He swiveled around in his chair to look at his brother, who had let his thoughts lead him away.

“Yeah, sort of…Actually, you’re probably the best one to talk to. I’m not sure the other guys would have much to say on the topic.”

Donatello leaned back in his chair, slightly amused. “Hit me.” He smiled, waiting to hear what existential calamity was plaguing his brother this time. Leo searched for the words, chewing on the side of his cheek as he tried to find a place to start. He stood up. “Nah, never mind.”

“Oh c’mon, man, you can’t leave me hanging like that!” Donny pleaded. He’d just broken away from the screen after hours of work. The momentum was gone now. Besides, if Leonardo didn’t really want to talk about it, he wouldn’t have come in search of a companion.

Leonardo didn’t sit back down, but just hovered half way between the chair and the door. “Do you ever think about, about what will happen to us?”

“As in the wacked out future we have visited, or something beyond that?”

Leo shuffled a little more before answering, “More like our history, our legend; Splinter’s legend.”

Donny sat up a bit, “Well, I’d say our history isn’t going anywhere. There are plenty of people and news stories for all to be reminded of who we are and what we did, despite trying to go for anonymity most days. The things we’ve done and the battles we’ve fought, it’s not likely people will forget those.

“And as for Splinter’s teachings, they live on through us. We _are_ his legend.”

“But that’s just my point. He was our father and we were his disciples, his sons. Where will all that go when we’re gone?”

Donatello leaned forward, elbows resting on his thighs and he gauged his brother a little more seriously now. “Are you trying to tell me something? I mean, dude, if you want to run off and start a school that’s not bad. Just realize you’ll have to do it somewhere secluded, like the Alps.”

Leonardo rolled his eyes, “No, I mean, yeah, OK. That’s not a bad idea, but I wouldn’t leave you guys here just to run off and teach monks how to fight for a world they’ve never been a part of.”

“Then what are you saying?”

Leo exhaled hotly, opening and closing his mouth several times while he tried to figure out what it was he really wanted to say. Sometimes talking to Donatello was difficult, because he enjoyed playing devil’s advocate to really pull all the information out of a person. Still, he was better than Michelangelo who had a tendency not to take the conversation seriously, or Raphael who would have gotten bored the moment Leo opened his mouth.

“I’m saying Splinter lucked out finding us in the sewers. We became a family because he was there. Where are we going to move on from here?”

Donny raised an eyebrow. “You’re not going to go kidnap some street urchins to raise down here in attempt to brainwash them, are you?” he joked. Well, half joked. The conversation sure seemed to be heading down some kind of path that usually sparked Mikey to come home with 3 cats in a wet cardboard box.

Leonardo’s eyes almost popped from his head. “What? No! That’s not…urgh!” he ended none-so eloquently as the voracity built up in him. “I’m talking about starting a family. Y’know, meeting someone and living life like…like…”

“Normal people?” Donatello ended flatly. Leo felt himself deflate in a matter of seconds, the awkward tension abating from his muscles. “Yeah. Stupid, huh?”

He didn’t miss how Donny’s eyes hardened at that. How he gave his brother a reproachful look before swinging around in his chair to face the computer again. “That’s up to you.”

For a few moments, Leonard stared bewilderingly at Donatello in the sudden change of attitude. Then understanding slowly dawned on him. “Aw, hey, man. I’m sorry, I didn’t think…geez.”

Donny didn’t turn back around, nor did he switch the screen in front of him back on. There was a time, really a few years, that Donatello had harbored more than a familial bond with April. Nothing had happened between them, but that hadn’t drained his hope that, someday, she would come around. When she left Casey, Donny had gone with her to the country. He’d stayed up there to help her move in and setup a new life. He’d also tried to finally man up and tell her how he really felt. April wasn’t stupid, she’d known on some level, but the rejection really brought the guy down. For several months he’d end conversations with some kind of sour quip on the lack of normalcy in their lives: “yeah, well, we’re not _normal_.” He’d say, or, “That’s for _normal_ people” was his other favorite stance on any particular subject. It took a while for them to realize that somehow, that’s what he truly believed after returning home for good. What he was really trying to say was “we don’t deserve it.”

“It’s fine.” Donny answered, though from the gruff sound of his voice it really wasn’t. Leonardo remained where he stood. “At least she’s doing good with Casey, they’re happy together. I’m not saying you guys didn’t go through a lot, but he was always there for her in ways we couldn’t be, you know?”

He wasn’t sure if what he was saying would even help the situation and, judging from the brooding silence, it wasn’t. Minutes ticked by before Leonardo gave up and turned to open the door before Donatello spoke again.

“It was a teenager’s crush, I knew it was. I just thought, maybe one day she wouldn’t see that. That she’d see I’d been through my fair share of things to make up for the age thing. Just, for once, I’d like to go to some stretched time line or alternate universe and NOT be running for my life or fighting for the freedom of our own world. Maybe we don’t belong with the humans but so far we sure as hell don’t belong with any of the other races we’ve met, so where does that even put us?” Donny wasn’t even sure his brother was still there until he felt a reassuring hand land on his shoulder. He was right: in every circumstance they’d been faced with there had been some small shred of hope lingering that maybe they would find someone, or something, akin to what they were. Once, and he doesn’t like to talk about it, Leo had been seduced by a green-skinned Jaedean, only to find himself upon a ritual alter as a sacrifice to the tribe’s gods later that week.

“It’s not the end of the world. Trust me, I’ve been there,”

Donny didn’t laugh.

“But there’s got to be one universe out there that doesn’t want us dead or bleeding. Someday we’ll figure it out.” Leonardo gave his Donatello’s shoulder a light squeeze before backing away towards the door a final time. Donny sighed and tiled his head back, still not turning to look behind him. “Good thing turtles live to be a hundred.” He answered dejectedly.

“Yeah, good thing.” Leo agreed finally making it to the door. When he exited Donatello’s space, Raphael was standing in the kitchen looking around like he was lost. When he heard the door shut, Raph turned to focus on his brother with an irritated look.

“Hey, where’s the milk?”

 


End file.
